


Balanced On The Edge Of This Sword

by olderbynow



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Comfort/Angst, F/M, Jack Has A Lot Of Feelings Okay, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 16:03:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7321663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olderbynow/pseuds/olderbynow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between S1 and S2 - Phryne was too casual about Jack having an EX-wife in <i>Murder Most Scandalous</i> not to have known already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balanced On The Edge Of This Sword

**Author's Note:**

> Words and I are becoming friends again. Periods and commas - and parentheses - clearly still hold a grudge and have developed some abandonment issues.

*v*v*

When it happens he’s almost relieved. Can’t even bring himself to be angry with Collins for his blunder.

(“--Since the inspector got divorced, but I guess that’s only--

“--No, wait, Dottie! _Please_ don’t tell Miss Fisher, the inspector would have my badge.”

Dottie nodding, eyes full of sympathy - whether for the inspector or Hugh is anyone’s guess - but she doesn’t say anything. Makes no promises.

Hugh in Jack’s office, tail between his legs, confessing.

Jack mainly just impressed Collins didn’t tell Miss Fisher himself before the ink on the divorce papers was even dry.

It wouldn’t have surprised him in the slightest. It’s possible he was even somehow counting on it.)

He spends the next few days waiting for the inevitable fallout, trying to work out how he’d want her to react.

But instead: Which is the least unlikely? That Miss Williams obeyed Collins’s request and kept a secret from Miss fisher, or that Miss Fisher knows and has actually refrained from commenting?

He mulls that one over as the days go by, keeps coming to the conclusion that none of them are even remotely probable, and yet.

One of them has obviously come to pass.

It’s possible, of course, that the resurrection of Murdoch Foyle, and then the discovery of her sister’s fate, have had her distracted to the point that the mundane details of his private life are not worth a second thought, if even a first one.

That would only be natural.

It teaches him, however, that he wanted her to know. Wanted her to pry, ask questions that seem uncomfortable and yet somehow offer relief when he hands the truth to her for examination and finds no judgement in her eyes.

(“My wife’s been living with her sister for some time now.”

“But a marriage is still a marriage.”

Until it isn’t.)

Wanted her to push him over the edge of the cliff.

It was a relief when Rosie finally asked for a divorce. He half suspects - the thought lurking somewhere in the back of his mind, mostly unexamined for the self-importance it implies - it might’ve been a bluff gone awry.

_She_ pushed him and he failed to push back.

He has failed her already, in so many ways, it seemed the nobler thing to do to let her go. To let her start a new life, unburdened by a husband who is no husband at all.

Admitting to himself that _he_ wanted his freedom as well becomes increasingly difficult with each day that passes, that newfound freedom serving no purpose at all, and were he pressed for an explanation for that, it would begin and end with this silence that draws on.

All in all, he’s relieved no one is pressing him for anything. (Except he’s not, because _she_ isn’t.)

Near-relief becomes frustration, which in the end becomes something akin to disappointment.

And then.

He finds himself on her doorstep, the evening dark and heavy all around him, the light shining from her parlour window like a beacon. His thoughts refusing to fix on anything particular, his body carrying itself here, unbidden - or so he tells himself.

(A meeting today with George Sanderson, hints and insinuations about Sidney Fletcher, a godson he vaguely remembers, some sort of reaction expected from him.

Jack merely nodding, feigning obtuseness.

The realisation that he genuinely doesn’t care, if only Rosie’s happy. It’s nothing to do with him, after all.

Not anymore.

A clearing of the throat from George and then the parting salute:

“I’m told you need the help of a lady to solve your cases these days, Jack. A rather unusual arrangement, isn’t it?”

A rather unusual lady, Jack doesn’t reply.)

Miss Williams opens the door, mug of cocoa in hand, looks about ready to retire, usually neat hair let down. From behind her he hears music playing on the gramophone.

Something quick and cheerful he doesn’t recognise coming to an end.

“Miss Fisher’s in the parlour, Sir,” Miss Williams tells him and heads for the stairs. Companion, not chaperone.

He pauses in the doorway, leaning against the frame, waiting for Miss Fisher to look up from the record she’s putting on and turn to him.

“Hello, Jack,” she says, eyes still firmly on the gramophone.

He smiles at the floor. “How did you know it was me?”

“Who else would turn up at this hour and just stand there without talking?” She’s teasing him, showing off her cleverness.

He feels himself begin to relax, the tension in his shoulders slowly easing.

“I could be an intruder, up to no good.”

Finally she turns, sparkling eyes meeting his, lips curled in a smile. “One can only hope,” she says, her tone suggestive.

“I meant a burglar, Miss Fisher,” he clarifies, keeps his expression blank, refuses to break eye contact first.

“If you were, I’m sure Dot would’ve been more reluctant to let you in.”

He nods, conceding the (fairly obvious, if he’s honest) point.

She looks to the armchairs, the tray containing the decanter of whiskey and its matching tumblers already resting on the table between them. As if she were expecting company. Her eyes leave his as if it’s the easiest thing in the world to her, the look they just shared completely insignificant. (As if she were expecting him, he won’t let himself think.)

But then her eyes turn back to him. That intensity in them that tends to make him momentarily forget things like his name, the country he’s in, and any reasons at all why he shouldn’t just kiss her. “Nightcap?”

She has flirted with him since before she knew him as more than Inspector. Done it more or less aggressively, but always, always harmlessly, exerting pressure only to the point where she can see him struggling with his resolve, never beyond that.

She has never forced the point, only made it clear to him what was on offer. Made it clear to herself that he’d _want_ to accept, had his circumstances been different, had _he_ been different. (Him making that glaringly obvious against his better wishes, judgement, everything.)

He suspects the flirting is as much for the benefit of her ego as it is for him. Suspects he should make it less easy for her, but he is a man, and even a man of honour has his limits. Lines he will not cross, certainly, but lines he will linger dangerously close to.

And now the circumstances have changed. The only thing still in his way is--him.

Him, and the certain knowledge that what she is offering is less than what he wants; and he’s not sure he’ll be able to settle on this point any more than he was able to settle for being a useless husband trapped in a meaningless marriage.

He smiles slightly, steps across the room and takes a seat in what he’s trying very hard not to think of as _his_ chair.

Any number of men is likely to have sat there, after all, drinking the same whiskey out of the same crystal tumblers.

Except, he doesn’t think they actually do.

He has never had the impression that very many of the men she entertains herself with (and she does entertain herself, not them) see much more of Wardlow than her private quarters.

“I assume no one has been murdered?” She watches as he pours out two fingers for each of them, the question an invitation to explain his unexpected presence in her parlour.

“Not to my knowledge,” he replies lightly. He came here to tell her, but how?

He still doesn’t know how he’d like her to react (how he’s worried she won’t react). How is he meant to begin when he doesn’t know where he wants to go?

He leans back, sips his whiskey in silence, surprised with every passing moment that she lets him. The certainty that she knows and is giving him his space takes hold and he is equally surprised and impressed by her restraint. He had half-expected her to goad him, tease out the confession, or simply throw the knowledge he never shared with her back in his face.

He appreciates the silence, the respect for his feelings it implies, whichever feelings those are. He fell out of love a long time ago, the falling in love anew is still happening and he suspects they both know it.

The space she gives him is the gap between what he wants and what she’s willing to offer. (If she gave him one night, would he be able to walk away? To watch _her_ walk away?

They both know the answer to that question would be the end. Of whatever this friendship is.)

“I meant to ask you, Jack. That difficult case you were dealing with, is it all settled?” Her voice is too soft, too gentle.

He looks down. If their eyes met now he would crumble. He swallows. “It is.”

“And did it go how you wanted?”

He breathes in deeply, steels himself for whatever is coming. Looks up. “It did.”

She’s smiling slightly, sympathy he doesn’t want from her rolling over him in waves that have him recoiling slightly. “Congratulations, then.”

The way she says it, it sounds more like ‘I’m sorry’.

He forces himself to smile, a gesture expected to fool no one, least of all her. “It went the only way it could,” he elaborates.

She nods at that, as if she understands. Marriage; the end of what was meant to be forever. Love, and the death of it that parted them.

“So what next, Jack Robinson?”

It could be an invitation, it could be a genuine question, it could be anything at all, and he has no idea.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“I suppose only time will tell.”

His eyebrows shoot up, an incredulous smirk forming on his face at the platitude.

She smiles, half-apology half-vindication, as if this were what she wanted from him. “Or you could just tell me now,” she suggests. Her tone is back to its usual playfulness, harmless teasing that he can either pick up on or leave alone.

He smiles, relieved. This is familiar ground, at least. “Are you suggesting I get to decide my own fate?”

“Of course,” she says lightly, but with the conviction of someone used to doing - and getting - whatever she wants. “Who else is going to?”

He doesn’t reply. (“Would you? Please.”)

“You can just keep doing what you’ve always done,” she suggests. It is an offer: We can leave things as they are, for now. I won’t change if you don’t.

“And what is that, in your opinion?” He feigns scepticism, the pretence that she can’t possibly imagine anything good about him.

“The right thing.” It is a challenge, a dare: We can change this, right now. I will if you will.

She is almost mocking him, but in her eyes there is respect, and something like trust that he will in fact do the right thing. The admission that whatever else she wants from him, she wants that as well.

“You make it sound so easy.”

“If it were easy, it wouldn’t matter.”

In the end, that settles it.

He finishes his drink in silence and when he leaves she walks him to the door, adjusts the fedora on his head until it’s at the angle she somehow seems to prefer.

When she’s satisfied, her hands fall to the lapels of his coat and she holds him in place for another few seconds before releasing him.

“Goodnight, Miss Fisher.”

“Goodnight, Jack.”

It won’t be easy, but it will matter, and he can wait until it does.


End file.
